Too Great a Pair of Friends
by Her Maresty
Summary: Nymphadora Tonks was all too willing to start mocking most truisms people generally and foolishly believed in after her meeting Remus Lupin. But did this also include her knowledge of the easy assignment of personal feelings to categories such as friendsh
1. Chapter 1

Too Great a Pair of Friends

by Her Maresty

**Disclaimer**: **The usual awestruck bows may be directed towards the unbelievable JK Rowling.**

**A/N**: I know this has been done before, probably in an even more glorious way than I dealt with the affair. Yes, this was supposed to be an ironic sort of joke, as is the title of my fic, by the way.

Regarding the exact contents of this fic, best check the summary again or even better, swallow the bitter pill and try to have a read ;)

In defence of my pride I may make a last announcement concerning inevitable mistakes in grammar and vocabulary. I´m **not **a native English speaker (or whatever you call it), therefore I write this fic in a language which still provides for entertainment in sorts of a lot of mean little traps lying in wait for a humble student like me. Correct English punctuation sadly eludes me entirely but may I add in this place my doubting the existence of such a thing or maybe its being taken note of in English-writing society ;) ducks for cover

So in summary I can only ask you generous folks to bear with me and my insufficient grasp of the English language. I gladly appreciate everyone kindly pointing out flagrant, hilarious, or minimal mistakes to me in their reviews though.grins timidly I really do.

This fic commences around the end of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire.

* * *

1: Nothing Earth-Shattering

Always inclined to find a way of postponing the encounter with the terrifyingly highly towering stacks of paperwork on her desk Tonks stopped on her way past Kingsley´s cubicle because she thought she´d caught the sound of her fugitive cousin´s name again. This was no surprise in itself since the Sirius Black case and its rather limited scope of witnesses which tended to be called suspects at least in one case were quite the talk within the Auror Department these days; the topic however interested Tonks a lot all the same.

So the young Auror casually leaned against the wall of her senior´s cubicle pretending to be leafing through the fragments of her occupational nightmare that had already somehow managed to sneak their way into her arms but really listening intently to what was being said behind her back.

"The Black escape?" a voice demanded that Tonks recognized as belonging to Scarplton, an average-ranked colleague.

"What else do you plan to do about it? We´ve questioned everyone we could possibly think of umpteen times and as long as Fudge doesn´t give his blasted consent Scrimgeour won´t let us extend the investigation in terms of interviewing these kids so we could examine their accounts of the night of Black´s escape from Hogwarts."

"What about interrogating Fudge´s pet prime suspect again?" this was Kingsley Shaklebolt answering and in Tonk´s ears he sounded definitely doubtful.

"The werewolf?" there was a pause in which Tonks imagined Scarplton shrugging indecisively.

"Whatever Fudge might shout about, his alibi for the night in question is sort of unassailable and anyway, the Auror who´s actually skilled enough to extract anything useful from this man has still to be send down there."

Scarplton gave a huff upon having exposed himself as having been beaten by a Dark Creature and Kingsley asked again sounding rather half-heartedly,

"A search warrant? Umbridge´d certainly sign one without further nuisance."

The lower ranked Auror snorted derisively.

"What for? You´d only find masses of heavily battered editions of Classic literature and heaps of yellowed cross-words torn out from Muggle papers."

"Classic literature and Muggle papers?" repeated Kingsley, presumeably trying to appear astonished in some amused sort of way; Tonks however thought he did a rather bad job in disguising a sudden interest.

Scarplton meanwhile didn´t seem to notice anything unusual. He just gave another great snort muttering something about highbrow freaks and wasted welfare payments. Shacklebolt didn´t expand on the subject and contended himself with proposing a possible personal visit to the fugitive´s friend´s place before announcing the briefing finished.

Tonks was sorry not to be able to witness Scarplton´s dismissal for the suspicious looks of various passers-by had reached such an intolerable degree in as well frequency as intensity that she decided to go for casual retreat. She didn´t get far anyway.

"Tonks?" demanded Kingsley´s deep voice from behind her "Why don´t you come to continue your part of the conversation inside my cubicle?"

The young Auror pulled a face and turned, only to be passed by a sneering Scarplton. Her senior was smiling amiably at her but this did not need to mean anything and so Tonks conceded defeatedly, fervently crossing her fingers at her sides.

"To me it seems you take an interest in the Sirius Black case that can´t be explained only by your natural curiousity" stated Kingsley without any preamble.

Tonks who expected to be reprimanded for eavesdropping decided to choose her words carefully.

"I-uhm-he´s my mother´s cousin after all and it´s not as if I´d got anything important to accomplish-" she sucked in her breath at her slip of the tongue and hurried on "-and everyone talks about it these days anyway."

Trying hard not to pull a face at the rather horrifyingly feeble nature of her statement she waited for Kingsley´s reaction. Luckily her superior refrained from either commenting on her tactics of generalization or throwing a meaningful look at the files she was carrying.

"Sit down "he invited "there´s something I´d like to talk to you about."

Feeling slightly confused Tonks lowered herself on one of the chairs, depositing her papers on Kingsley´s desk, which- this time- did earn her a raised eyebrow.

"They´re still mine to work on" she said wistfully.

Kingsley nodded emphatically, only to become totally sober a second later.

"What do you know about the affair?" he asked, his voice very akin to the one he used while interrogating suspects.

Tonks took this as a request to answer thruthfully and to concentrate herself.

"Not that much" she began cautiously "only, well what he did fourteen years ago, killing all these Muggles, being in league with You-Know-Who, and-" she hesitated, this was not a subject she was overly keen to discuss; the ragings of her mother, although at that time she hadn´t really understood what it had all been about, had all the same left a considerable impact on her young mind. Gulping she continued.

"-betraying the Potters. And he- was alleged to have been after Harry Potter when he escaped from Azkaban."

Kingsley nodded.

"To sum it up, everything the public knows, except the bit about the Potters of course, which I assume your mother told you about."

Tonks hummed her agreement and Kingsley continued.

"Have you read the newly attained interrogation records?"

Tonks fleetingly considered if Kingsley expected her to answer this question thruthfully but since she really hadn´t read the files concerned it didn´t matter anyway.

"No I haven´t."

"Well I have, naturally. They struck me somewhat strange to say the least."

Kingsley paused, thoughtfully staring into space before smiling sardonically and carrying on with his explanation.

"The colleagues detailed to investigate questioned Albus Dumbledore among others. Dumbledore gave quite different an account of what happened the night the Potters were murdered and Black vanished. I´m of course aware of what they say about Dumbledore´s so-called decline and his account is marred by the fact that he wasn´t present the night Black escaped from Hogwarts and can only speak based on the testimony of his werewolf teacher and three kids- Harry Potter amongst them. But if you want my personal opinion, I don´t give a damn about what Fudge and his gang like to spread concerning Dumbledore´s alleged senility and his story intrigued me enough to encourage further investigation on my part.- Hmm, you might want to know that I was in the Auror training programme together with Sirius Black and was acquaintanced to his best friends- the late James Potter and Remus Lupin who Scarplton so excessively groans about."

The Auror paused again, this time to secure himself the continued attention of his young listener. Tonks nodded impatiently and Kingsley couldn´t quite hide a smile.

"Consequently I went to visit Lupin- off-time and off-record naturally. He affirmed Dumbledore´s story and was rather determined to convince me of Black´s innocence which was in its way peculiar enough since he, according to the records of former interrogations, usually aimed at dodging questions- quite succsessfully as you´ve certainly heard. In the end the conversation left me with things to ponder about for days."

At this point Kingsley appeared to have come to an abrupt end. Tonks frowned at him bewilderedly.

"Yes?" she prompted "I´m not yet tired, you know."

Kingsley snorted appreciatively.

"I´m afraid the rest of this story is too confidental an affair to discuss inside the walls of this building- despite my sound muffling Charms.

"You-" Tonks started, only to be interrupted after the first word she uttered.

"You were the one to give me reason to after all" Kingsley said, his words accompanied by a impatient gesture of the hand. "But what´s much more important now- you surely want to know why I´m telling you all of this, let alone hear the end of the story."

Tonks graced him with a sarcastical smile.

"So why don´t you want to call on your old haunt again and meet us in the headmaster´s office the day after tommorow?"

Smiling one last inviting smile Kingsley got up. Tonks automatically followed his example, her head swimming. On seeing Kingsley being on the verge of leaving his cubicle she shook her head decisively and caught up with him.

"One moment please, Kingsey" she said "Eh, are your spells still active?"

Her senior turned around and nodded, for some reason looking rather relieved.

"What is it, Tonks?"

"Quite a lot" the young Auror answered distractedly "let´s get started with-who´s us? Does your meeting Dumbledore on regular terms mean you believe him- about You-Know-Who

being back as well? And if that´s true- why?"

Kingsley was smiling broadly and also proudly at her.

"Well, unfortunately I´m only able to answer one of your questions safely. I believe in Dumbledore´s and Lupin´s account because it makes sense in itself, settles open questions other stories circulating don´t, and among the two of us- it´s the closest to what I personally feel is right. Furthermore both the headmaster and Sirius´s old friend seemed to really be convinced of the truth of what they were telling me and I can´t see any reason why either of them should´ve been telling lies."

"This Lupin chap´s a Dark Creature after all" Tonks objected doubtfully. A moment later she frowned at herself. Usually she din´t nourish predjudices like this- her mother had seen to that. The work with certain members of the staff really did leave its ugly imprints on her mind.

Kingsley meanwhile gave an derisive snort sounding like Scarplton, though his words did not at all.

"Dumbledore trusts him-" he said matter-of-factly "and besides, you would never in your lifetime guess he´s a werewolf on only meeting him, believe me."

Tonks nodded in relief. She really didn´t want to condemn anyone before meeting them, not or rather especially not on such a basis.

Kingsley gestured her out of his cubicle a moment later and while she passed him he whispered,

"The meeting´s tommorow. Two o´clock."

The next day was a Saturday and the weather- even up in freezy Scotland- was exceptionally bright. Tonks wandered along Hogmeade High Street towards the school gates, feeling her spirits soar. She had a day off far from dusty old parchment, the sun was burning down on her bared arms and she was going to attend some kind of mysterious meeting, at least if Kingsley´s fuss and secretiveness could be believed. Actually, she pondered, she felt almost like being a schoolgirl again, heading for the first meeting of some exciting new club, tingling all over with delicious anticipation.

On arriving at the iron gates she paused to smile up fondly at the two winged boars topping the stone pillars on either side of the entrance to the Hogwarts grounds. She patted the rough stone, not quite reaching up to the quirky animals, then looked around quickly before morphing herself a few years younger and Conjuring a black cloak that vaguely resembled the ones the students wore and even bore the sparkling badge of her old House.

Grinning she slipped into it and marched off over the grassy green lawn, wondering if someone would detect her disguise. There were a couple of students milling around and talking animatedly, others were sitting about in the shade of the beech trees at the edge of the lake, doing nothing, and a fews first-years were crouching at the shore, enthusiastically tickling the Giant Squid that was drifting about in the shallow waters, probably trying to catch a tan. Nobody noticed anything unusual about her appearance and to Tonks it felt as if no time at all had passed since she´d left Hogwarts for good.

In the Entrance Hall however she bumped into a group of older girls from her House and Tonks caught one of them glancing suspiciously at the strange girl of the same age and House. She bit back a laugh having recognized her as a certain very nosy girl who´d been in first-year when she´d left and who´d always told fantastic stories nobody had believed but found hilarious all the same. Tonks accelerated her steps anyway, not wanting to be unmasked yet.

In front of the gargoyle that marked the entrance to the staircase leading up to Dumbledore´s office she stopped, remembering that she was supposed to know something she didn´t in order to proceed. Grimacing the young Auror retreated a few steps, not wanting to stand in the line of fire if the gargoyle started to behave as pleasantly as the ones in front of the staff room tended to do, and tried to decide what to do now.

The resounding ring of the school bell however tore her away from the fruitless dredging of her memory for Honeyduke´s products, as it did not only bring relief for masses of students and resigned groaning for the other half but also footsteps approaching the office of the headmaster. It was two o´clock.

Tonks hastily transfigured her appearance as to look her true age again, Vanished the fake school cloak and slipped into her regular one designed according to the demands of an Auror.

This very second the footsteps cornered into her corridor, but the man approaching wasn´t Kingsley Shacklebolt as she´d anticipated.


	2. An Interesting Challenge

2: An Interesting Challenge

Instead Tonks found herself facing a middle-aged, rather thin man, wearing shabby Muggle clothing, and sporting a pale, almost peaky-looking face, and a shock of quite tousled, light-brown hair. While her work-induced urge to look behind all mysteries still tried to figure out why she´d instinctively pinned the stranger´s age at having reached its early mid-thirties in spite of the fact that his hair was streaked with grey and his face rahter lined the man stopped a few feet away from her and regarded her in apparent surprise.

Tonks attempted to stare him down with her sternest Auror-like glare, a skill she´d picked up from Professor McGonagall funnily enough since the respectable professor had used it rather frequently on her when she´d been a student but the stranger merely raised an eyebrow at her talents.

"Quite intimidating" he remarked, obviously referring to her would-be authoritarian stance "this´ll frigthen the living daylights out of Dumbledore, I´m sure, provided you make it till his office, of course."

To her utter shame Tonks had to admit that it took her several moments to come up with a witty enough response; time she spend staring at the man´s perfectly calm expression and pleasant smile, replaying his words in her mind until she was sure he´d really said what she thought she´d heard. Finally she shot back.

"Don´t they teach you at least the basic principles of showing respect to one´s superiors out there in the great, no-holds-barred Muggle world?"

Orignally Tonks had planned to accompany these fierce words with an even more fierce stare, her arms firmly crossed over her chest. But when she prepared to do so, she found herself looking up in the man´s not at all offended face, and all of a sudden she wanted to burst out laughing about her own ridiculously shakeable ego that couldn´t bear a single jibe by a stranger.

She thought she´d seen the man´s eyes nearly brim over with sudden sparks for a moment but obviously she´d been wrong for he bowed his head and answered in an almost prim voice, not quite meeting her eyes.

"I should like to apologize. Apparently I´m posing as an extraordinary poor inferior once again, wrongly associating superiority with obstrusive professionalism, boring colours of hair, and the ability of remembering the entire sortiment of Honeyduke´s sweets for purely professional purposes."

"That´s indeed a rather misleading concept of recognizing superiority" Tonks nodded, before stopping dead in her train of thought. She fell silent for the millionth fraction of a moment, then bursted out.

"Pardon me!? What the _bloody hell_ are you alluding to?"

She had to really grant it to him. The great joker actually managed to lead her up Knockturn Alley just a few mortifying seconds longer by heaving a fairly convincing display of indignation on his face and frowning with rightful bewilderment, before letting slip a strangled splutter, closely followed by an amused huff.

"You" he admitted, finaly giving in. He no longer avoided looking her straight in the face, and his whole stance had shifted towards a more sophisticated but strangly self-concious bearing.

Plus his strikingly light-coloured eyes performed a most curious dance, fuelled by a seemingly great amount of personal amusement. To Tonks it appeared that the man was biting back a huge grin at her expense.

"I´m sorry" he unexpectedly added, sounding thorougly honest "it´s seems I´m having a bad day. - Usually I try not to behave as rudely, mocking the professionality of strangers, especially the one of obviously extraordinary talented witches who´ve managed to join the Auror programme at that young an age."

Tonks frowned at him, wondering what kind of wool he was now trying to pull over her eyes; this time however she couldn´t detect any sign of mischief in his expression.

"S´all right" she mumbled, for some obscure reason feeling fairly embarrassed and concurrently highly alarmed at her frightening reluctance to be annoyed with this pair of kind eyes peering at her out of an ill-looking face. A grown-up woman ought to react with distinguished indignation at having been wound up in such a way by a completely strange man, shouldn´t they?

However, Tonks found his stunt rather hilarious actually. Oh well, apparently she´d never quite find her way around this lady-like comportment stuff, a minefield her mother used to float above with dreamlike certainty. Bugger it, anyway.

"D´you like Acid Pops?" the stranger´s slightly hoarse voice suddenly broke into her resigned musings.

"What?" Tonks said, blinking in a confused way.

"I wondered if you liked Acid Pops?" he repeated pleasantly.

"Uh, I don´t think so?"

The man laughed softly.

"Seems Dumbledore doesn´t either" he remarked with a sidewards glance at the gargoyle still determinedly guarding the entrance to the headmaster´s office.

"Who would anyway?" Tonks chuckled, grasping on and happily joining in on the game "if I went for mind-expanding through cauterizing my tongue, I´d rather use my mum´s Muggle cleaning vinegar, that´s much cheaper to get off with.- So, what about you? D´you fancy Pepper Imps?"

He pulled a face at her and the gargoyle didn´t react too over-enthusiastically either.

"I couldn´t quite say so. In fact, I always wondered how they managed to sell those off under the label of ´sweets´." He paused to consider her thoughtfully.

"I bet you love Bertie Bott´s-"

"Every–Flavour Beans" he added with a shrewd look at the obstinate guard still blocking their way.

Tonks smacked her lips.

"Absolutely" she nodded, peering at the goal "but it seems Dumbledore prefers less adventurous experiences at the moment. Hmm- a bit of ego-boosting maybe. You´re a chocolate frogs fan?"

The man laughed merrily.

"Nice try" he congratulated "but no. Chocolate always and everywhere; I don´t really fancy hunting after my food though-"

For a split second Tonks thought she´d seen a most curious look cross his thin face but probably it had only been a cloud hiding the sun for a moment outside.

"-it´s rather Stone-agey, I think. The same goes for Peppermint Toads, by the way."

"Suit yourself. So now we´ve arrived at the soft stuff, haven´t we? Coconut Ice or Ice Mice perhaps?"

The gargoyle still didn´t agree. Tonks frowned at it, hoping for a source of inspiration that didn´t present itself.

Her companion meanwhile tweaked the bridge of his nose, apparently thinking hard.

"What was it they attempted to palm off on me lately? It struck me totally inedible, even when I didn´t know it was- Cockroach Clusters, of course."

Eventually the gargoyle leapt aside, obviously not caring for the disgusted glance the man cast it.

"Well, as long as you don´t have to actually _eat_ the stuff in order to gain entrance…" he then commented, beckoning at the spiral stone staircase the sliding apart of the wall had revealed,

"after you, if you please."

Stepping on to the moving stairs Tonks grinningly quipped,

"It´d certainly keep all evil Death Eaters and boring Ministry superiors at bay."

His low chuckle inaugurated the circling upwards of Dumbledore´s enchanted staircase and only after they´d knocked at his office door and the headmaster´s voice had welcomed them inside, it struck Tonks as unusual that she neither knew her companion´s name nor his motives for paying Dumbledore a visit.

The Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was seated behind his desk, smiling at his two visitors with his head resting upon his clasped hands and his eyes twinkling merrily. Tonks also spotted a rigid back that almost certainly had to belong to Professor McGonagall, as well as the tall frame of Kingsley Shacklebolt leaning against the window sill.

"Good afternoon, Remus," Dumbledore said, obviously addressing Tonk´s up until now nameless acquaintance who was quietly closing the door behind them "and you of course Miss Tonks. It is my honour to welcome you again inside this castle. May I thank you in advance for troubling to attend today´s meeting."

Tonks felt like being a schoolgirl again- the blushing included in the gift wrapping.

"Um, thank you too, Headmaster. It´s my pleasure…I actually don´t really know why I´m here though" she added, wincing at her own words. Was there anything more unprofessional sounding you could possibly say under such circumstances? Probably not.

Dumbledore naturally didn´t appear to have noticed anything, at least if you didn´t count his smile increasing the tiniest bit in visibility.

"I´m quite confident we might be able to remedy this," he answered pleasantly "if I may offer you all some sort of seating accomodation?"

With a little flick of his wand three aditional squashy chintz armchairs appeared out of nowhere. Tonks immeadiately made to shuffle towards them, relieved to have something to do with herself, and unavoidablely bumped into one of their armrests when the man called Remus moved it for her to sit upon. People didn´t usually do things like this for her though.

When Kingsley had joined them as well Dumbledore looked at the lot of them fondly before addressing himself to Tonks again.

"I take it you remember your former professor for Transfiguration" he remarked, his blue eyes twinkling cheerfully.

"You may call me Minerva now, Nymphadora" Professor Mc Gonagall conceded generously, nodding her approval of this preferential treatment.

"As long as you don´t call me _Nymphadora_," Tonks muttered very quietly, aloud she said "I´ll try my best."

Kingsley sniggered at her.

"I also take it you already got to know Remus Lupin?" Dumbledore continued in an enquiring tone. Smiling at the man mentioned Tonks explained,

"Yes, we met downstairs, in front of-" Stop, _what_ had Dumbledore said his name was? Remus _Lupin_? Surely that didn´t mean _he_ was …

Hastingly she glanced at Kingsley, expecting him to frown at her in exasperation but to her utter horror her superior´s face was unusually sober and totally unforthcoming. This left Tonks to frantically look for the flaw in her train of thought which hopefully would deliver her from one of the most mortifying situations of her young life; the sudden silence though soon felt so unbearable to her that she forced herself to say something, anything. Blushing hard she choked,

"Eh, I, eh…didn´t-" –_find myself an Unforgiveable quickly enough_.

"-think that werewolves were capable of spelling the word ´joke´, let alone recognizing its benefits in every-day small talk? - Hmm, sorry for having to disillusion you but I absolutely detest rare meat and usually hold the Honeyduke´s sweets sortiment in great honour."

As impossible as it was but the soft voice having spoken actually belonged to Remus himself and he´d sounded as pleasant as all the time earlier. Tonks stared at him blankly, entirely forgetting about everyone else present. Remus was smiling at her and it a was very strange smile. A little bit weary, quite ironic, and very self-concious perhaps.

Later on it struck Tonks as strange that she had not for a single second felt anything remotely related to fear, or disgust, or what people usually reported after having encountered a Dark Creature; but at the moment she could only feel incredulity on his behalf and utter mortification on hers.

Learning of this man being a werewolf sounded definetely very similar to her mum breaking the news to her that Aunt Bella had started to arrange for family heirlooms given out to destitute Muggle-borns; Tonks however decided that this was something that could be dealt with later. First of all she would have to account for her unacceptible behaviour on understanding about the man and her incapability to- preferably earlier- note his condition in tactfully silent acknowledgement.

Tonks allowed herself to close her eyes for a brief second, then took a deep breath, and said in a comparatively steady voice,

"I´m sorry, Remus. I really shouldn´t have stared at you as if you were a curiosity at the zoo or whatnot. I was just so- well, utterly astonished."

She could feel herself blush even more ferociously and bit her lip in annoyance with herself before chanching a glance at him.

What she got to see took her completely by surprise- if the surprise element wouldn´t ´ve been abolished before.

Apparently Remus had been watching her almost thoughtfully and on catching her peering at him he smiled an encouraging smile that was obviously intended to console her. The only question was what he thought she needed consolation for. For her own inefficiency? Tonks had to defer these thoughts at the moment though for Remus had started to talk, sounding suddenly very serious.

"I can´t think of anything you would have to apologize for, Tonks."

Tonks opened her mouth to protest but he wouldn´t let her. For some totally obscure reason he was grinning again; his tone one of light joking.

"Actually, going bright red is quite pleasant a way to react after hearing about my condition, I find. I´ve had girls running away from me, screaming murder, old ladies employing their handbags on me…"

This was clearly going over the top now. If this was the way he preferred to deal with the situation then she certainly was fed up with embarrassing herself in her stammering search for a suitable apology he didn´t seem likely to acknowledge any need for anyway. Jesting she could as well.

"I could develop things if you liked. Could even try to do all three things at the same time but this might turn out to become a bit of a co-ordination problem for me…"

Eventually she seemed to have hit the right approach. His grin broading with obvious relief Remus countered,

"Running away and hitting me at the same time? This would certainly be a new development in achievement."

Dumbledore quietly cleared his throat and Tonks could only just refrain from mumbling something like,

"About time."

"I´m sure it would be a very entertaining performance to enjoy but maybe we could postpone the procedure for awhile?"

As nobody held any objections to this suggestion the headmaster continued in total composure,

"After having established the personal issues we might now proceed to the more professional ones, I daresay. Let me explain why I asked you to attend this meeting, Miss Tonks."

In summary it turned out to be a highly illuminating and most exciting afternoon. Tonks got to hear the exclusively true story behind her infamous cousin Sirius Black´s life from the mouth of an eye-witness and she honestly couldn´t spot a single reason why she shouldn´t believe in this account, even if it lead to the inevitable conclusion that You-Know-Who really was back. If Albus Dumbledore said so then it was the truth and anyway Tonks presumed that this piece of information didn´t frighten her half as much as it obviously did the Ministry since she had only vague recollections of the time of You-Know-Who´s first reign. Things like not being allowed to play outside and lots of ragings and storms of cries from her mother.

And there was of course- so Tonks had to grudgingly admit- the fact that she didn´t manage to pay _full_ attention to the on-going conversation. Her previous chat and- much more important- non-chat with Remus just didn´t flee her mind. She couldn´t possibly make out what exactly bothered her about her behaviour or his or anything and this was what buggered her most. Actually, she found his humorous way of dealing with his condition quite endearing and admirable as well so why did it feel that queer to her?

At last Tonks could only silently shrug to herself. Probably her pride was merely protesting at having been fooled in such a way. Thoughtfully she regarded the almost worn-through knees of Remus´trousers, noticing that his shoe laces didn´t match, and promised herself that she would eventually succeed in sussing this man out and if it was the only useful thing she could achieve for her spiritual welfare and this Order of the Phoenix.


End file.
